A Breath of Snow and Ashes - Diana Gabaldon [657]
“Well, that’ll be a scoop, won’t it?” Roger muttered. No matter what Bonnet actually said—or didn’t—there would undoubtedly be a broadsheet hawked through the streets tomorrow, containing either a lurid confession or mawkish reports of remorse—perhaps both.
“Okay, I really can’t watch this.” Abruptly, Brianna turned, taking his arm.
She made it past the row of warehouses before turning abruptly to him, burying her face in his chest and bursting into tears.
“Ssh. It’s okay—it’s going to be all right.” He patted her, tried to infuse some conviction into the words, but his own throat had a lump in it the size of a lemon. He finally took her by the shoulders and held her away from him, so that he could look into her eyes.
“Ye don’t have to do it,” he said.
She stopped crying and sniffed, wiping her nose on her sleeve like Jemmy—but wouldn’t meet his eyes.
“It’s—I’m okay It’s not even him. It’s just—just everything. M-Mandy”—her voice wavered on the word—“and meeting my brother—Oh, Roger, if I can’t tell him, he’ll never know, and I’ll never see him or Lord John again. Or Mama—” Fresh tears overwhelmed her, welling up in her eyes, but she gulped and swallowed, forcing them back.
“It’s not him,” she said in a choked, exhausted voice.
“Maybe it’s not,” he said softly. “But ye still don’t have to do it.” His stomach still churned, and his hands felt shaky, but resolution filled him.
“I should have killed him on Ocracoke,” she said, closing her eyes and brushing back strands of loosened hair. The sun was higher now, and bright. “I was a coward. I th-thought it would be easier to let—let the law do it.” She opened her eyes, and now did meet his gaze, her eyes reddened but clear. “I can’t let it happen this way, even if I hadn’t given my word.”
Roger understood that; he felt the terror of the tide coming in, that inexorable creep of water, rising in his bones. It would be nearly nine hours before the water reached Bonnet’s chin; he was a tall man.
“I’ll do it,” he said very firmly.
She made a small attempt at a smile, but abandoned it.
“No,” she said. “You won’t.” She looked—and sounded—absolutely drained; neither of them had slept much the night before. But she also sounded determined, and he recognized Jamie Fraser’s stubborn blood.
Well, what the hell—he had some of that blood, too.
“I told ye,” he said. “What your father said, that time. ‘It is myself who kills for her.’ If it has to be done”—and he was obliged to agree with her; he couldn’t stand it, either—“then I’ll do it.”
She was getting a grip on herself. She wiped her face with a fold of her skirt, and took a deep breath before meeting his eyes again. Hers were deep and vivid blue, much darker than the sky.
“You told me. And you told me why he said that, too—what he said to Arch Bug: ‘There is a vow upon her.’ She’s a doctor; she doesn’t kill people.”
The hell she doesn’t, Roger thought, but better judgment prevented his saying so. Before he could think of something more tactful, she went on, placing her hands flat on his chest.
“You have one, too,” she said. That stopped him cold.
“No, I haven’t.”
“Oh, yes, you do.” She was quietly emphatic. “Maybe it isn’t official yet—but it doesn’t need to be. Maybe it doesn’t even have words, the vow that you took—but you did it, and I know it.”
He couldn’t deny it, and was moved that she did know it.
“Aye, well . . .” He put his hands over hers, clasping her long, strong fingers. “And I made one to you, too, when I told ye. I said I would never put God before my—my love for you.” Love. He couldn’t believe that he was discussing such a thing in terms of love. And yet, he had the queerest feeling that that was exactly how she saw it.
“I don’t have that sort of vow,” she said firmly, and pulled her hands out of his. “And I gave my word.”
She had gone with Jamie after dark the night before,